A Christian’s Guide through the Gender Revolution: Gender, Cisgender, Transgender, and Intersex

By Vincent E. Gil and Jerry Camery-Hoggatt

Contemporary questions about gender challenge our views of ourselves and the proverbial other. In this meticulously researched, well-written, and illuminating guide, Vincent Gil unpacks elements involved in gender-identity conflicts and intersexuality. At the heart of the matter are real people, not just issues. Drawing on histories culled from his many years as counselor, professor, and researcher, Gil explores gender and identity, issues of conflict, and of reconciliation. He distinguishes biological and psychological elements from social issues, and addresses the current movement of gender individuation, its language idioms, and its influences on gender ideology and theology. He also provides an engaging theological discourse, filling gaps in our understanding of procreation to better inform our theology of being. The work assists Christian parents, clergy, and lay leaders by working through the tough questions. It suggests means to engage, counsel, support, and reconcile with those gender-questioning or conflicted, be they children, adolescents, or adults.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Release date: Dec 22, 2020
• ISBN: 9781725286726

Vincent E. Gil

Vincent (Vince) E. Gil, PhD, is Emeritus Professor of Medical/Psychological Anthropology and Sexological Sciences at Vanguard University (CA). Dr. Gil holds a Ph.D. in Psychological Anthropology from UCLA, followed by two postdoctoral studies: Medical and Clinical Sexology from the Masters and Johnson Institute, and Public Health Epidemiology from UCLA. An awarded professor, international researcher, counselor and licensed minister, his work in clinical sexology covers medical, psychosocial and cultural venues. He has worked with major hospitals internationally (China, Tibet, Korea, Japan, Mexico, and the Caribbean) and with sexual minority populations in the U.S. and abroad. With over forty published articles, research papers, and book chapters, decades of work with the sexually conflicted, he writes from firsthand experiences and from a Christian heart. He lives with his wife, Dr. Mikki Gil, in Southern California.

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A Christian’s Guide through the Gender Revolution

Gender, Cisgender, Transgender, and Intersex

Vincent E. Gil

Foreword by Jerry Camery-Hoggatt

A CHRISTIAN’S GUIDE THROUGH THE GENDER REVOLUTION

Gender, Cisgender, Transgender, and Intersex

Copyright ©

2021

Vincent E. Gil. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers,

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Cascade Books

An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

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www.wipfandstock.com

paperback isbn: 978-1-7252-8670-2

hardcover isbn: 978-1-7252-8671-9

ebook isbn: 978-1-7252-8672-6

Cataloging-in-Publication data:

Names: Gil, Vincent E., author. | Camery-Hoggatt, Jerry, foreword writer.

Title: A Christian’s guide through the gender revolution : gender, cisgender, transgender, and intersex / by Vincent E. Gil.

Description: Eugene, OR : Cascade Books,

2021

|  Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers:

isbn 978-1-7252-8670-2

(paperback) |

isbn 978-1-7252-8671-9

(hardcover) |

isbn 978-1-7252-8672-6

(ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Gender identity—Religious aspects—Christianity | Gender nonconformity—Religious aspects—Christianity. | Christian transgender people. | Sex—Religious aspects—Christianity. | Transgender people—Identity. | Intersexuality.

Classification:

LCC BR115.T76 G55 2021

(print) |

BR115.T76

(ebook)

12/30/20

Table of Contents

Title Page

Permissions

Foreword

Preface

Acknowledgements

Abbreviations and Acronyms

Chapter 1: The Now Of Gender

Chapter 2: The Language of Gender

Chapter 3: Portraits of Gender Today

Chapter 4: Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

Chapter 5: What Is a Parent to Do?

Chapter 6: Manipulating Biology in Children and Teens with Diagnosed Gender Dysphoria

Chapter 7: Christianity and the Gender Crucible

Chapter 8: Pastoral and Church Leadership Responses to the Gender Moment

Chapter 9: The Church and Transgender Activism

Conclusion

Bibliography

Dr. Gil deftly bridges the science and theology of sex and gender to provide an honest, refreshing, and faith-based perspective that also prioritizes the person. Here is a well-informed and compassionate guide for the Christian, whether a parent of intersex or transgender children, a pastor seeking information and guidance, or a gender-questioning individual. Central to the argument is the notion that God’s kingdom is large enough to understand and embrace those who seek wholeness and acceptance in their lives.

—Robert A. Mullins

Azusa Pacific University

How many times have I sat in my office wishing there was a good book that covers it all, gender questions to ask and answer, with Scripture, science, and life histories . . . well, here it is! This book moves us through the gauntlet with life histories and narratives of compassion that are biblically and scientifically grounded. Vince Gil provides practical tools for parents, pastors, lay leaders, while challenging us to create a more embracing, empathic, Christ-like response to the gender moment. Look no further than this book!

—Erin (Bongiorno) Donovan

Former Executive Director, HopeSprings

"There are books written by Christians that have never journeyed with transgender persons, or who speak of only prescriptives without understanding their histories. I thus wondered if Dr. Vince Gil would be one of those authors. He proved me wrong. Vince Gil goes to the heart of the issues without losing sight of the person. This is the first book I’ve read that rises to the occasion. Not only is the language accessible and direct in explaining the science, cultural and social understandings, theological views and challenges; it invites the reader to stop, reflect, and consider before cementing their response. There is novel information to further frame perspectives on the ‘other’—intersex, transgender, non-binary—as well as on theological challenges. This book is an invitation to Christians to sit and reason together out of love for the ‘other.’"

—Lisa Salazar

Author of Transparently

Some Christians may wish for a return to simpler days when gender questions were ignored or brushed off with a quick application of a few Bible verses. But, if Christians are called to be salt and light in the world, and if we are called to love our neighbor as ourselves—and we are!—then it is crucial that Christians thoughtfully engage the difficult questions surrounding intersex and transgender. Happily, Gil provides a helpful guide to these labyrinthine issues. With an irenic spirit and an open mind, he helps us understand the questions better, and then steers toward helpful, workable answers that are biologically, theologically, and pastorally sound.

—James Beilby

Bethel University

To my wife and life coach, Dr. Magali (Mikki) Gil,

who can make anything possible through her forbearance,

wit, and unending love—this is for you.

And, to all those Christians who inspired me to write this book

to help traverse this gender moment—this is for you, too.

Permissions

Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com. The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.®

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, Copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, a Division of Tyndale House Ministries, Carol Stream, IL 60188. All Rights Reserved.

Permission to use Figure Differentiation of Reproductive System into Male and Female Organs granted under Copyright © Creative Commons Attribute 3.0 Unported. Original source is Connexions at http://cnx.org/content/col11496/1.6, 2013.

Internet addresses (websites, blogs, etc.) printed in this book are offered as a resource to you. These are not intended in any way to be or imply an endorsement on the part of Cascade Books, an imprint of Wipf & Stock Publishers, nor do we vouch for the content of these sites for the life of this book.

Permission to use relief block print Les Miserables on cover, Copyright Stephen Alcorn, Alcorn Studio and Galleries. Print is from Literary Classics Collection. www.alcorngallery.com.

Foreword

In times of change, learners inherit the earth; while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.

—Eric Hoffer

The writer of Ecclesiastes lamented what seemed then an explosion of books, and admonished that of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh (Eccl 12 : 12 ). So why this book, and why now? And in particular, why a book for Christians especially, about the challenges vexing gender and identity in contemporary America?

My emphatic answer is that we need this book! Almost every moment of cultural and historical significance has had its contentions underscored more than its agreements, but the present moment has seen unprecedented contention, and comes at a moment in time where life is difficult for many on many fronts, with social changes increasing in both variety and complexity. If the writer of Ecclesiastes was right then, how much more so today, when our media are flooded with books and blogs, op-ed pieces, and the biting and sniping of what feels often enough like vapid opinionating on social media. The problem is that the much of it only reinforces what we already believe, in the process blinding us to any truths that may be articulated on the other side.

Over a hundred years ago, British philosopher John Stuart Mill pointed out that as long as opinion is rooted in feelings, it resists or discounts any inconvenient facts because the feelings appear to be based on some deeper truth that rational arguments do not reach (The Subjection of Women, 1). It’s quite easy to suppose that deeply held feelings are the same as moral clarity.

This is where we are with the questions Dr. Vincent (Vince) Gil, my colleague and friend, discusses in this volume. The term gender revolution has become the shorthand for a consolidation of sentiments about gender and identity; a term that solidified for many a kind of culture war. Literature on gender and identity comes to us fast and furious, with the word furious sometimes taking the lead. Each side then becomes ever more convinced by their feelings on a level where rational arguments do not reach. All too often, the entrenchments solidify into non-negotiable positions.

In this volume, Vince reminds us again and again that conversations about gender and identity need not be set in opposition; indeed, they can become cooperative projects in which we seek together a third path. To do that, he insists that we begin by listening to the personal stories of the people who are directly impacted by these issues—those who are biologically intersex, who are troubled by sexual dysphoria, or whose family lives are directly affected by these questions. To understand the issues, we first must encounter and genuinely try to understand the people concerned. This book is filled with stories, some of them deeply anguishing, many enmeshed in physical biology or the workings of the psyche, others involving issues of spirituality and the impact of these questions on the journey of faith. While it’s entirely possible to parse the issues theoretically and abstractly, we mustn’t stop there. As followers of Jesus, we’re asked to listen directly and carefully to the people who are directly impacted.

It is this attention to the persons involved that makes this book so useful for Christians. Here, Vince provides us a way that we, as Christians, can bridge this particular divide. When we take real people as seriously as Jesus would, when we pause long enough, listen carefully enough, and think ethically enough, we can begin to ferret out the significant nuances that lead to better questions, and then to better informed and more hopeful answers. Importantly, taking human experience seriously requires that we listen carefully, even when that process and the learning is uncomfortable. Let’s call this, principled listening.

Vince’s core message is that when we practice principled listening in a context of accurate science and careful theology we discover that there is in fact a third way, not a reluctant compromise but a more generous, more patient, and better informed approach to answering the questions. This is an approach that takes science, scripture, and actual human experience seriously.

Doing so also requires us to be open to new knowledge. To paraphrase Eric Hoffer from the masthead quote in this foreword, In times of radical change, it is the learners who inherit the earth . . . . I could not think of a better learner than Vince to help us gain appropriate understandings about this contested space. He’s one of those professors who continue to be learners themselves. My testimony comes from decades of shared, collateral service as faculty of a Christian university in Southern California.

Vince’s continued path to learning has made him a medical and psychological anthropologist, sexologist, researcher, compassionate caregiver and counselor, and licensed minister. He is a distinguished and awarded educator, and a well-recognized researcher with dozens of peer reviewed articles, papers, and book chapters. Earlier than his research years, he founded Interlude Ministries, a nonprofit counseling service for the sexually problemed Christian. It is this rich background, precisely, that enables him to address gender identity and intersexuality questions from the expertise of his exceptional multispecialty.

Those receiving his counsel on the journey toward psychological wholeness have also gained a deeper, more authentic faith. His ministry to students has been astounding, especially among those who are struggling to understand issues of their own sexuality, gender, and gender role expressions. I’ve watched as they’ve flocked to his classroom or slipped quietly into his office, hoping for help in sorting out the issues, not only for themselves, but also for their families and friends.

The issues they bring to him are never easy. What are they to do when they find themselves in the contested space between the simple binary of male or female, or trapped by discomfort with the role expectations that go with the binary? How are they to understand their gender and identity in the context of their own faith journeys? How can they help their family members, or friends who are struggling? How should a parent understand a child or adolescent who is gender-nonconforming? For some, the issues are vocational: as they prepare for, or are now in, pastoral ministry, how are they to understand the experiences of the individuals who will come to them for care? This book addresses all these dimensions by tailoring chapters for parents, for clergy, and for those with their own gender-identity questions.

There’s an old conviction among academics that both Vince and I teach our students: Before you can say you disagree, first you must understand. But precisely because the issues are complex, the effort to understand requires that we investigate from multiple perspectives, using a variety of tools. The physical aspects of our selves can be studied objectively, neutrally, through the tools of scientific research. These are the tangibles, replete with statistics and validations. Vince explains these things with admirable clarity, disentangling the various strands of the scientific evidence, then setting them into a framework in which their complexities become clear.

Other aspects of the questions are psychological and emotional. These are better understood through the lens of real-life histories, histories that give substance to the issues. In this book, Vince brings his professional expertise and long experience to unpack the stories, helping us to hear them more sympathetically, always probing for deeper and more general meanings.

Vince uses the tools of the social sciences to help us understand the ways the issues are also complicated by sociocultural factors, like gender ideology and social role expectations; they’re made more difficult by opinions about what is or isn’t normal; what is or isn’t normative, what is or isn’t acceptable. What Vince doesn’t do is challenge the fact that there are norms. Many of these are upheld by science, not just society or theology. He calls our attention to the impact of our current cultural norms, their effects on people caught in the deeply personal spaces between family expectations for themselves, their beliefs, their faith, and their inner realities. He also calls us to explore the current movement to self-identify outside any norms; to consider its influence on how many now think of themselves, how we think of ourselves, and what our children are learning. In this way, what he does do is open up space for more informed conversations, and for genuinely helpful pastoral care.

The reason these questions are so important is that it’s precisely here—in the centered space between the physical, the psychological, and the sociocultural—that we position our ideas about what it means to have a self. This is where we determine who we are. All of these combine to form those basic frameworks for understanding where we fit and what it means to live authentic, meaningful lives.

As we learn from the numerous case studies in this book, it’s precisely here, in this centered space between the physical, psychological, and sociocultural dimensions, that some of us discover that we’re woefully out of joint, alien, or deeply dissonant. Since what is at issue is the self, these dissonances can become profound and extensive; and when such happens, they inevitably raise questions of existential and religious significance.

Because the dissonances have religious significance, clearly what’s needed is a redemptive response. To explore that, Vince brings in yet another set of tools, this set attuned to the interpretation of ancient texts and long-standing religious tradition. Unfortunately, here too, things are problematic, and the dissonances are even more deeply anguishing when normed expectations are couched in terms of biblical authority. This is a matter of my own expertise: biblical scholarship. Biblical scholars know, but don’t often share, that original biblical texts are often difficult to translate from the Hebrew or Greek into English. When there are multiple meanings or layers of nuance, translators must often choose one, then set aside the others. The resulting translation can appear to support a single, clear, unequivocal reading, where the original may be less clear, or contain other useful information.

Vince understands this. Importantly for us, he examines the relevant biblical texts to probe those additional nuances that are lost in translation. This is hard work, but it can provide deeper understandings and, in most instances, add clarity to how we read the Bible. In the case of creation, and our procreation, such nuanced exegesis helps us better align our understanding of scripture with what science is now telling us about ourselves. So Vince calls us to become better informed about what the Bible does indeed teach, and what it does not.

The issues are also theological: How do we understand our bodies in God’s image, when these seem so frightfully out of touch with our minds; and in combination, with what we may have been taught as Christians? How do we understand the body as a temple of God when what we’re taught is that the feelings we may have are inherently immoral or godless?

For Christians, the issues finally come home in this: Who we are is more than a natural biological, psychological, or social construct. Who we are is a work of divine creativity; before anything else, the critical clues about who we are are found in the theological concepts of the image of God, and the transformed self as part of the body of Christ.

However rapidly our wider culture might be changing, Vince asks that we examine it carefully, and that in the care of individuals we take time to slow down the opinionating, find the facts, and pay careful attention to the issues of faithful and authentic personhood. He calls us to a more informed, generous, open-hearted approach to those who are dealing with these difficult questions, and in that way helps us map a pathway forward toward positions that are better informed, more compassionate, and ultimately more redemptive.

Indeed, to tweak John Stuart Mill here, Vince is asking the church of Jesus Christ to cultivate a social regard for the intersex and those with gender conflicts that is more thoughtfully narrated, seeded with up-to-date and accurate information, and a revisited theology. Above all, he is asking us to include in our feelings those which embrace empathy, compassion, and the hope Jesus offers everyone.

Jerry Camery-Hoggatt, PhD

Emeritus Professor of New Testament and Narrative Theology, Vanguard University of Southern California (Costa Mesa, CA). Jerry is a widely published scholar in biblical studies and a popular fiction writer.

Preface

How Did I Get Here?

Little did anyone expect 2020 to bring on the turmoil and tumults that we are now experiencing. I write this as the COVID 19 pandemic continues to sweep through the US, and the rest of the world deals with secondary outbreaks. At the center of this moment, in the US and around the world, calls to aright racial injustices have broken through the social fabric, a result—yet again—of lives being taken inconsequentially. Protests have taken on proportions heretofore not seen; people of every race and ethnicity banded together to remonstrate for a better world. It’s a narrative of seeking harmony, but like an earthquake, the narrative instead lays bare the faults of our vicious cultural and racial global history.

What does this, if anything, have to do with gender? I’ve spent some time of late in isolation pondering this: why do I think the current moment is akin to the gender moment? Here’s what’s become clear: both are part of a larger human problematic, one that suggests identity and otherness should be examined closely to determine if some should be excluded or embraced.¹

The fact is, I could not dismiss the anguish I was witnessing. It circled back to the gender conflicts I had been privy to, lives I became part of professionally and personally. I also couldn’t dismiss the myriad students in my Human Sexuality courses over the past years of this gender moment, who had told me stories:

•Of their dad outing as transgender and going through surgery. Then the exclusions that followed when telling others about it.

•Of a sister who thought she was gay, only to realize it was all about her body not being right with her head. Then the exclusions that followed when telling others about it.

•Of themselves being gender conflicted, and Christian. Then the exclusions that followed when telling others about it.

•And the real kicker, a friend and colleague who had just discovered her child to be intersex, and was dealing with how to understand what she now knew about her little girl . . . who wasn’t really, all girl. Then how to deal with the exclusions that will probably follow her.

Theologian Miroslav Volf reminds us that our moral and civilized selves too often rest on excluding those we feel to be immoral or barbarous.²

For a few years, I watched my compassion toward such labeled individuals, and anger toward misinformation, grow. For the last year, I could not resist the deep-hearted urge to try to put an understanding to the transgender moment for the Christian I knew so well didn’t have good answers. Then there was the tug of the Holy Spirit—moving my heart more than I can share with words.

So how did I ultimately get here?

Truly, there’s nothing more exciting, or perplexing, than teaching a Human Sexuality course to college undergraduates. The perplexity grows when the course is taught in a Christian university, where what you think students don’t know, they do; and what you think they do know, they don’t! My colleague and friend Dr. Jerry had the serendipitous habit of opening my classroom door—in the middle of a lecture—and yelling in, "Be affirmed, all of you! Learn something! That all of you" certainly included me.

One afternoon, while teaching this course, I waxed on about distinguishing between what is gender non-conformity and what is gender dysphoria. I was making certain to describe typical experiences and patterns in each of these different classifications, while answering student questions that kept popping up.

Nothing does better than an illustration when trying to teach about gender dysphoria, so I proceeded with my usual, Let me give you a real-life example; a clinical history pieced together from many I had encountered or counseled. I made sure that the most common elements were included, anonymously framed, of course.

Concluding the class, a student walked up and asked for a sidebar. I want you to know, he said, "that you are the first person who totally described me, up there (pointing to the podium). Curiously, I asked, What do you mean, me? He said, Your description of my life-course—you described all the elements that I’ve wrestled with; my body, my mind, my soul . . . and I didn’t have a label until now: It’s about my gender!"

Unbeknown to me, a lot had come together to put this student in the class that afternoon. None more important than a rejection from his father earlier that same week, when he finally told his father he was having problems not feeling man enough. Other elements included life-long feelings he wasn’t at all the boy, later the young man, his genetics and his learning said he should be; trying desperately to excel in sports—having an avid athlete father—to grow into the man he was supposed to be; failed relationships with peer women, not knowing whether he was in some way gay or otherwise, having only distant feelings for them; turning it Freudian and blaming his over-doting mom, when he knew better; avoiding women, when he didn’t know what else to do. He hated his own body. Maybe he should have been born a girl and should be different—he had thought of how liberating that would have been.

Desperate for answers, he had enrolled in Human Sexuality. Maybe the shame of his feeling worthless and the unimaginable sense of despair that he felt—that dreadful loneliness—would have a reason. He knew his sex had a lot to do with it; but he didn’t have a label for what framed his life-experience.

Everything’s in a name, we say. Dread or liberation, futility or consolation. It’s all there, waiting to be sorted and weighed, sometimes judged, sometimes vindicated, by a label. As I’ll note later, labels can also be deadly.

For this young man, the terms he learned that afternoon gave him handles to begin to see and understand for the first time what was a syndrome of emotions and physical negations. That such would be irreconcilable with self, identity, expectations, and role obligations, he’d have to now figure out (I recommended a therapist).

No youth pastor, friend, or schoolteacher had ever picked up on the self-body-identity issues. None had invested time with him to seek an understanding of what was going on. For certain he had been prayed for, encouraged, sometimes even blind-dated at the urging of friends to help him with his shyness, or with him being an awkward dude. Nobody had thought to investigate his conundrum with a dimension of identity that now we are all conscious of, gender.

I couldn’t any longer put away the stories I had been privy to hear; lives I became part of as they shared in counseling, in class, in corners of buildings and hallways, illuminating my need to do more, and more that is worthwhile. And their stories—in and out of counseling—kept growing.

Over the last decade and a half, issues that surround gender have surfaced almost as with a vengeance for not having had a place, a voice, in our cacophonous society. And I became even more convinced that the church needed to attend to these lives, their questions, their exclusions, in earnest. After all, questions from gender-conflicted individuals weren’t that dissimilar to mine, the sexology researcher, the counselor. I wanted answers—they did too. As believers, weren’t they also worthy of being considered in God’s image, imago Dei?

The more I paid attention, the greater grew the conviction that we as the church of Jesus Christ needed to get over our fears of contagion, our fears of gendered differences unraveling our theology of male and females. We needed to get over our judgments, and reach a better understanding of our procreated selves.

Even more, I now find it imperative that the church restate again its commitment to modeling how God embraces us through Jesus’ sacrifice. In so modeling, we should become donors of our time and emotions, engaging acts of accompaniment for those walking through this gender moment. Donors include parents, pastors, other clergy, and you and me as emulators of Christ.

This book is the result. I hope to help us all understand a way through the gender moment—the gender revolution—the one that has swept into our consciousness and is now flooding our church doors.

My hope is that this work will become a resource and a way to respond, understanding very well that there’s still a whole lot more to unravel. Let’s do it together, with Christian mercy, a Christian embrace, and hopes of reconciliation through Jesus Christ.

1

. We have Miroslav Volf to thank for diving deeply into a socio-theological exploration of identity, otherness, and reconciliation in his opus Exclusion and Embrace (

1996

).

2

. Volf, Exclusion and Embrace,

62

.

Acknowledgements

Acknowledging my life partner, love of my life, and mother of our children comes first, since from early on in our lives together, she has been my educational inspiration and—quite frankly—coach on everything academic. We’ve gone through BAs, MAs, PhDs, postdocs, myriad certifications, two live births and two careers, literally together —forging alliances, and debating life on and off the dinner table. To her I owe time, time stolen to write, edit, and proof this work; and bottomless thanks for her unending belief that what I do matters. I would be a lesser person, and none of this work would have been possible without her . Thank you God, and thank you Mikki, for loving me so.

As you’ll soon read, this book began as an effort to give voice and understanding to all those who trusted me with their stories of sexual and gender conflicts, an accumulation of over thirty-eight years’ worth of working in the field of sexology and teaching human sexuality. I’ve been privileged to hear,